Life and the Turk
by S.Zix
Summary: Elena finds that being friends with Marlene Wallace is like the forgiveness she had never really wanted.


_So some preliminary notes on this. First of all, this was an entry to the monthly writing contest at The Genesis Awards forums: "Write a piece showing the slow transformation of the Turks and AVALANCHE from enemies to allies. Do not skip over the fact that the Turks are cold-blooded murderers."_

_It was supposed to be under 5,000 words. And I didn't win, but I still felt immensely touched because three people voted for me despite the competition. I just really like this piece, even if it's convoluted and has its fair share or problems. Let me know what you think! Don't forget to leave criticism._

_Also, a big thank you to **Moiranne Rose**_ _for not only giving this a once over before the contest, but also for letting me use her idea that Turks work on Sundays from her wonderful fic, 'A Week from Tuesday.' You should also go read her other stuff because, you know, she won the contest I wrote this for._

**Life and the Turk**

Sundays perplex Elena. All her life, she wanted to be a Turk. She used to sneak into her sister's room while the older girl slept—when she had the time—and pull on the pressed blue suit, loose on her thin arms. Now that Elena has lost her title role, she shuffles through Sundays with a half-crooked innocuous attitude. She asks Reeve what to do with a day off, and the WRO commissioner suggests redemption.

Elena does not quite understand what he means by redemption until she wanders into the new Drug Mart. The man at the counter _looks_ at her, but she swears she has never seen him before. He suggests, three times, that she take her business to a market more suited to her needs before she gets the hint.

She ambles on Sundays, feeling like she has 'Bad Egg' plastered on her forehead with liquid latex, turned away everywhere but Tifa's bar. At first, she finds Tifa's resigned cheerfulness disconcerting. The stoic grunts of greeting proffered by Cloud remind her of toeing guiltily into Tseng's office to rat out Reno when he tracked western continent sands all over the foyer, only more jarring. Eventually, however, she starts to think of the bar like the barracks of SOLDIER. She does not belong there, but she can give out IOUs like fake smiles. She can feel safer there than on the streets of Edge, where shop keepers refuse to sell her headphones to drown out the whispers of a past she had never wanted to redeem before.

Which is how she finds herself today, kicking the curb in front of "Smiley's Electronics," wanting to vomit rage all over the sidewalk. Instead, she slumps down onto said curb and glares across the half-built street. A sign promises ice cream. And, instead of redemption, a six year-old girl whose brown eyes Elena recognizes from Tifa's bar sits in front, fingering one gil and wishing for two.

With nothing to do with her pay check except pay off her tab—and since when did Turks ever do _that_—Elena stands and crosses the street. She surreptitiously motions toward Marlene Wallace. The vendor nods and relinquishes a dollop of ice cream. But his eyes follow her anyway. Because who knows. She might just use the last of the arsenic.

Elena sits next to Marlene with a vanilla cone, two sprigs of mint leaf, and a ridiculous smile she does not remember using before. Marlene Wallace smiles back, not even suspecting horse-raddish, let alone arsenic.

Silence makes Elena's tongue itch, but she keeps quiet. Something about the girl leaves her temporarily mute with reverence. Even after the ice cream vanishes, Marlene keeps smiling. She asks Elena her name and, upon receiving it, wonders aloud if she can call her ''Lena' instead because it is short and pretty. Though Elena feels like neither, she nods. She tells Marlene Wallace that she is named for her grandmother. She tells Marlene Wallace that she likes the nickname. She tells Marlene Wallace a lot of things that she realizes a little girl probably does not care about at all.

Yet Marlene only nods, brave and beautiful like black smoke breathing on the red sunset as the night descends. When Elena walks her back to Tifa's bar, she promises to repay her for the ice cream. But next Sunday, Marlene confesses that she wasted her allowance on Denzel's bottle cap collection. And the Sunday after. And the Sunday after.

Elena does not mind. She delights in stolen moments where she pretends to be the big sister her own had never been. On the second Sunday, she takes her to see the fat street performers dressed in white with summon material on wires dangling from their heads.

On the third, they sit outside of a bookstore and talk—well, Elena does most of the talking—without going inside. The shopkeeper says nothing because being with Marlene is like the redemption Reeve told her about.

But this too she does not mind. Even when, on the third Sunday, Marlene tells her that her father is coming to visit next week. Elena just promises to take her to the new Shinra Spire where the old reconstruction crane used to sit. No, she does not mind.

Not at first anyway.

-

I cannot find Marlene at the bar today. No six year-olds under torn blue throw pillows streaming stuffing. Not a fine hair mixed in with the dark bruisers parading around singing drinking songs.

Tifa should have had those liquor-colored marbles doing something useful instead of eyeing a dense good-for-nothing-blond. Useless, the both of them. _Do something_ with your life. Even if it's wrong!

"Tifa," I ask, keeping the beet color on my cheeks in check, "where's Marlene?"

She nearly tips over face-first with six empty beer glasses. "Wha—err, wandering?"

Not a problem. Marlene doesn't get in trouble. It's the resourceful genetics knocked loose by shoddy parenting. But why can't Tifa Lockhart stand still to save the glassware? Why's her finger tracing the lip of the black stool distractedly?

"Tifa," I press. "What's the problem with my Marlene?"

The barmaid turns her face quickly away, kicking and stumbling over words like shale slide. "It's nothing—It's—Why would there be a problem?"

Highwind once said "Lockhart's so bad a liar that even Wallace can catch her in the act." I brush off the insult now. I see her shaking in her high-tops.

"Just spit it out Tifa," I grumble, setting off all of the warning signs of a popped gasket.

"She's out with Elena," she mumbles.

"Who's Elena?"

"Oh, you know," she sighs. "Elena works at the WRO with Reeve and Rufus—"

Shit. A blue suit. I can't believe I let this happen. Marlene. Sneaking around. With a Turk.

I try to tell myself not to boil at Tifa. It's my fault. But it doesn't work. A Turk can only substitute for a six year-old's role model on Hawaiian Shirt Tuesdays in Northern Crater. Elephanta—or whatever her fucking name is—should not come to places where she _knows_—and she has to, even though it is a bar—children live. I do not give a grain of Corel sand if she is a woman and has some sort of unfulfilled maternal instincts. She gave up those when she sliced her first artery. And Lockhart lets them _in_.

"How long has this been going on?"

"A few weeks now." The nerves dance like freckles on her face.

"Damnit Tifa!"

"Don't do this Barret Wallace," Tifa storms. Her eyes loose the pink chaff color and boil red. She gets defiant when she stands up for the so-called rights of the stupid and useless: Cloud, for example. "We owe them after the remnants," she says. She _says_. Would someone kindly tell me what exactly the Turks _did_ that we owe them for? Comedic relief? Insisting on absolute loyalty to the job as long as it's a single-bullet kill, but vanishing in a cleverly disguised magic act when they might lose a few extra ass hairs? What?

And Cloud? _Cloud_? I'm sure when the suits walk in he nods his pointy head at them like they belong here. Just like any other damn customers. I wish I could shake him straight. I wish—

But there's no fixing it now. "Let me take care of my own daughter Tifa," I snarl deep. Tifa might be like a daughter to me, but I have a little one to take care of, and if she doesn't get it, she doesn't _get it_.

The barmaid blazes at me, holding a glass like a club. "I hope you like the ending, you pompous ass."

I barely hear her.

When the perpetrator shuffles home clenching Marlene's hand, I hold off my hackles until I see the six year-old smiles scuttling up to bed. Then I round on the Turk.

She isn't welcome here anymore.

She knows.

-

Inevitably the next Sunday comes. Elena steals one last guilty visit. She does not want to catch the brown eyes and the girlish smile before she exits the bar, but she does. Marlene Wallace evades her father and slinks after Elena with a giddy grin that Elena does not want to dash.

The dimples in Marlene's cheeks remind Elena of pineapple in midsummer and jealousy that ran too deep. Elena wants to tell her that the world is as pretty as she is: even if it is not.

Wallace looks like life does whenever Elena closes her eyes and tries to picture it. Reno thinks life is tall and golden with wild plumes that stick up like satellites. Rude never says, but Elena gets the feeling that, for him, life has a secret patient beauty that he can see only when he has sunglasses on. Tseng likes the flowers in the old slum church. But for Elena, life is Marlene Wallace: coddled in boring beige and brown, timid, small enough to squeeze between brittle slabs of concrete.

Every time she killed someone, she killed Marlene. She sees her everywhere. Everyone, Elena knows, is a child. Everyone has this pink-polished nail scratch cling to life that makes _sure_ you know exactly what you do when you take it away. She sees Marlene's raspberry smile sweet and sour on the smoke stacks, the wind, the cockroaches, and every face she ever ruins.

" 'Lena?" Marlene chirps.

She walks a little faster.

" 'Lena, where are you going?"

"Go back home Marlene," Elena says, refusing to turn around because she knows she cannot resist the cinnamon in the little girl's eyes. "I don't have time to play with you today."

"You promised," she insists. "You promised to show me the Spire."

Elena knows the clear chrysalis would spatter the concrete just _right_ on a Sunday afternoon. She knows Marlene would squeeze Elena's knuckles until they turn purple from the pressure. Elena knows the jubilant crooning would pick at her chest until her dimples show too.

She stops, but she does not turn around. "Ask your father about it okay? You can go see it with him. Tell him that if he doesn't take you, I'll make sure Reno comes to Tifa's bar _every day_." She waits, breathing, feeling the heat of the Sun in her chest.

"You won't come?" Marlene sounds so forlorn that Elena turns around despite her resolution not to look. The small lower lip trembles. The pink ribbon in her hair droops a little. She stares resolutely at the clogs on her feet.

Resigned, Elena slides her index finger under the quivering jaw. The girl sniffles but forces a tenacious smile because she is brave: braver than any other little girl Elena has ever met.

"I think it's best," Elena whispers, "that you don't get to know me better, okay?"

"No!" The chin wrinkles. "I think that's stupid."

Elena cannot help smiling at her. Even though she is trying—and failing—to say goodbye. "Your dad doesn't like me much," she confesses. She remembers the burly man folding a thick fist into an armpit. She remembers the condemnation, anything but stoic, drilling into her ears and the sound of gun barrels turning.

"My dad doesn't like anyone at first." Marlene rolls her eyes, her chin still firmly held by Elena's index finger. "He'll get over it."

Wistfully, Elena lifts her hand higher on Marlene's round left cheek, running a thumb over the pouch. "He won't," she says quietly, "because this time he has a good reason."

Slowly, she pulls her palm away, but Marlene catches it with her thin fingers and _glares_—or at least, makes a good attempt. Elena smirks at her and snorts out a tiny chuckle.

"But I still owe you ice cream," the girl presses.

"Marlene Wallace, you've given me much more than ice cream." When Marlene's eyebrows buckle, Elena sighs and smooths her finger over the girl's forehead. She tries a smile too. She is terrible at goodbyes. She always talks too much, but when it comes to goodbyes, she just wants to curl up with her face in a pillow and cry. "If anything, I owe you. Big time. Bigger than _you_ even, and you're a big girl."

"I'm not," Marlene pouts. "I don't think so."

The little girl's freckles catch the gold in the Sun. She does not move; she stands with her shoulders rolled back and her head low, her lips pulled tight, no longer struggling with a smile. Pale grey dirt drifts around her feet, making her ribbons look like petals and her spindly arms look like leaves.

For a moment—just a moment—before Elena turns to leave with furnace in her eyes, she sees life precisely the way a Turk sees it.

Elena tries not to smile. She is not brave.

-

Sometimes, it really _bugs_ me that I cannot be quiet. When I walk, _I walk_, and everyone knows it. People say they can tell my mood from the way I walk. But today, I cannot bring myself to mind who knows.

Edge is fine and all. I let Marlene live here. But colorless grey buildings and walk ways filed so flat that all of the city's character slides away on slick stone tend to bring a guy down.

Then there are the pressed blue suits. I think I have the ability to smell them. Those Turks wash them all the time to cover up the stink. The blond girl, with her head bowed low—probably thinking of some sort of seditious double-cross maneuver—is no different. Her back sticks out like antifreeze against the half-complete ring of buildings.

"Yo," I growl, grabbing her by the arm. "Where d'ya' got my Marlene?"

Of course I didn't sneak up on her. But she lets me grab her wrist and pull her around anyway; she's too damn smug to be afraid.

"Gee." She winces a little, her blue eyes scrunched in her empty head. "What did I do to you? Little me just walking through a city running errands and—"

"Don't play stupid girly," I cut her off and set my shoulders wide in an effort to look more intimidating. "I [i]know[/i] you left with my little Marlene today. I told ya' ta' leave 'er alone."

She has the nerve to roll those pretty marbles of hers. "I sent Marlene—"

"Don't say her name Turk!"

"Fine. I sent your daughter home already." She sighs, brushing her hair behind her ear. "She isn't out here, and I certainly didn't take her. She's probably just wandering around. She'll be home soon."

My face feels hot. I bite my lip and take a deep breath to keep from spitting in her face. "You're lyin'," I tell her.

She looks nervous now. Her feet shuffle on the flat walk. Good. She better damn well be nervous. "Mr. Wallace, I swear I sent her home. I—"

"And I said you're _lyin'_!" This time I do spit in her face, and I don't feel guilty about it. But I feel my forehead flush a little because I always get embarrassed when I can't control myself. "You're lyin'. You Turks never listen to no one."

"Mr. Wallace," she repeats as she wipes her nose with a white lace kerchief. She's not very good at staying cool either—for a Turk. Pink dots her cheekbones and her wrist shakes. "If you want to see your daughter that bad, then I can try to help you find her. I did exactly what you instructed me and told her I can't spend more time with her. But I—l can tell you where she likes to go in the city and help you search."

I think about it, watching how she shrinks in the uncomfortable situation. I can _tell_ that she'll try to use this as an excuse to see Marlene if I take her up on the offer. And if I tell her no, she'll probably run whichever way she's got her hid. But she'll do it all sneaky-like so I get lost trying to follow. Turks are crafty that way.

She isn't counting on one thing though. I won't fall for it.

"If you got her hid somewhere, so help me—"

"Oh please Mr. Wallace," she scoffs. "I haven't kidnapped little girls for a whole two years now."

If she's trying to make a joke, I'm not laughing. "Alright, take me to her. I've gotta' make sure she's safe. And if you're telling the truth and you didn't take her, she's going to get a lecture! So don't get any ideas about sneaking out of my sight."

"She might be at Shinra monument," Elena says, walking briskly to the Southeast. Turks. All business—

Wait a minute. Shinra. "I knew that damn thing was no good."

"Do you even listen to yourself?" she asks me. "You sound ridiculous."

Maybe. A little. But I ain't admitting it to no Turk. I stew with my tongue tucked behind my molars and shuffle after.

Her eyes glance backward. The partially-concealed visual assessment makes me uncomfortable. Especially because she shakes her head and chuckles to herself when she turns forward again. A protest bristles like spider legs on my neck, but I don't know how to voice it. I listen to the city on Sunday afternoon instead.

Citizens laugh at the sky, clear without the reactor hogging the light. It isn't as bright as Correl, but I can almost taste the air around the smoke. Trying to ignore the Turk in front of me by watching the street shops, though, is like trying to ignore firelight by staring at the shadows. You can still see Shinra everywhere you look. Only thing is, we've been strangling it away. It's still so hard to see anything good on the outskirts of Midgar, but it's here: just like the black ink stain on the cuff of Elena's suit coat.

When I follow her, now, though, it brings back all of the bad things. I try hard not to think of Shinra: what they did to Correl, what they did to Dyne, how they took Marlene. I can't. It's always with me. Shinra is a part of this town. Shinra is a part of me.

-

Rufus Shinra built The Glass Spire to symbolize unity. The structure seems simplistic enough, and it certainly is not very tall for a 'Spire.' Three legs join five feet above ground into a single coiled spiral that juts into the sky, peaking at twenty feet. It has a condensed pomp that sparkles under the light. Elena finds it fitting. Shinra donated it as a symbol of his good intentions. But Elena knows that there are hidden motives for everything. She just has not figured this one out yet.

When she rounds the corner—Barret Wallace's breath loud enough to serve as a trumpet hailing—and beholds the top of Shinra's Glass Spire, she sees the huddled white figure on the third coiled rung from the top.

"There she is," Elena tells Barret Wallace. He still has his eyes stuck away from any line of vision that might include a strand of blond hair.

His buzzed head jerks toward Elena, eyeing her suspiciously. Whenever the black eyes harden like coal, she has to try not to laugh. He frightened her at first today, and Sunday of last week when he confronted her, but she has him figured out now. He builds his notions on past wrongs, but he prevents himself from acting out of the fear that he might cause all he knows to roll on top of him. "Where?"

"Look at The Spire," she says as she points. His eyes jettison. He swears. He runs. Louder than a Heavy Tank from Gongaga.

She follows more slowly as she can feel her lungs constricting. She knows that she tends to stumble and scuff her palms when she gets nervous. She is also more likely to talk her tongue purple, so she fears what she might say to Marlene. Part of her wants to turn back around, head toward the WRO headquarters, and twitch awake into a shriveled blue rose on her bed.

She already told Marlene goodbye once today.

When Elena can see the base of The Spire, she can also see Barret Wallace's face ruby in the orange of low afternoon. His leaps sound like shots from his gun as he thunders fruitlessly, waving silver at the sky. Elena has to cover her mouth to hold in the snickers.

"You get down here Marlene Wallace," he threatens. "I'll lock ya' in your damn room for a week! That statue's made of glass."

"I'm not coming down," she calls defiantly. Elena can see her arms wrapped around her waist, eighteen feet up.

"The hell you ain't!"

Elena decides that reprimanding him for using language in front of his daughter is probably a lost cause.

"I'm not coming down," Marlene insists, almost as loudly as her father—he must be, Elena thinks, so proud, "until you tell Elena I can be friends with her."

Barret's lower jaw drops rigid. Elena sees poison sparks in his eyes. "That's it." He sends a sturdy foot forward. "I'm comin' up there."

"Wait a minute Barret," Elena shoots between the big man and the crystal spire filtering light onto his dark cheeks. "That thing might look sturdy, but it's also made of glass. And you're what? Three hundred pounds? I can talk her down." She does not actually believe that the glass spire would break with his weight, but something tells her he will not be able to convince Marlene to come down: perhaps the fact that the rotating silver cylinders in his gun arm look more polished than his tarnished tongue.

He deliberates internally for a moment, but as a father, heights make him nervous. When he panics, his eyes darting hazardously, Elena can see Marlene Wallace in his face. "You better bring her down safe Turk," he growls.

Elena nods, waves her hand at him half-heartedly, and glides toward the spire. She spreads her palms wide on the cool glass and pushes herself, inching along with her legs wrapped around the cylinder. She marvels at the resourcefulness of children as she climbs. She grips the lowest rung on the spire and pulls herself up, using each curl as leverage until she sits next to Marlene.

Elena has to bow her head to squish between one level and the next. She tries to fit her face in Marlene's gaze, but the girl is staring at her feet, kicking over the ledge of the spire.

"Marlene?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she grumbles. She sounds gruff like her dad.

"Well, I'm going to sit up here until you do," Elena chimes, trying to sound cheerful.

"The silence will drive you crazy," Marlene giggles. "You won't be able to take it."

"I can be good at silence," Elena objects. "I never said _anything_ when it was important on the job. I could sneak with the—"

Elena notices Marlene's face perk up. The light turns her cheeks into pearls, and the Turk remembers who she talks to.

"You're right; I'm terrible at silence." Her cheeks color. "Bad at talking too."

The little girl beams. She shakes her head and straightens her back so that she is leaning low and watching Barret pace, his eyes black mines trained on her face.

Being around Marlene is like forgiveness. But Marlene, Elena thinks, is far too young to forgive her. As much as Elena might want it, befriending Marlene is a two-way lie.

"I'm really bad at giving poignant speeches," Elena starts. "I always screw it up by saying too much, or something I shouldn't. But I have to say this, so I'm going to try anyway."

Recognizing the signs, Marlene Wallace merely sighs and waits for the lecture.

"Sometimes you meet people"—Elena mentally berates herself for the wretchedly obvious opening—"and you can tell right away whether you'll like them or you won't. But others, you have to get to know first before you can make a decision. And it might seem to you like I'm one of the first kind, but I'm not. I'm one of the second kind."

Marlene rolls her eyes awkwardly, trying on a new expression. Elena can tell she wants to object, but she stays quiet, accepting the fact that adults have to get it all out before child input is warranted.

"But sometimes you just don't get to know that second kind of person before something comes up and you can't anymore," Elena presses forward, hoping she has not left anything out yet. "And that doesn't mean the person was someone you could or couldn't like. You might even learn to remember her as a friend later, but you still don't know her: not really.

"So you're left with this _thing_ that's a part of you like everything else, but you don't really know how until one day you make a decision, and you realize that you made this decision because of the person you never got to know. She has some impact on your life. She makes you see something about the world in a different way you wouldn't have otherwise.

"So it's a good thing then because meeting someone and getting to know them a little bit—but not enough—for four Sundays in a row is a tiny fraction of what makes you you. Because of that, I'm glad. I'm glad, Marlene Wallace, that I met you and didn't quite get to know you. I hope you're glad too."

The blond ex-Turk finishes feeling like she put in twice the amount of butter necessary to make the perfect cheesecake and kicks her heel hard against the lower rung, wincing both at the physical and verbal pain.

But then Marlene, white against the backdrop of Edge, speaks timidly, but with a voice strong enough to make her father's chest burst with love. "I met Aeris Gainsborough a little bit, and I always thought of her as a friend. But I can't really say I liked her. I know she was good because Tifa tells me stories. But I didn't know her. She was just 'Flower Lady' to me. So you're like Aeris. You're 'Ice Cream Lady.' "

A cold lump collects in Elena's throat, but it does not taste sweet. "Not exactly." Elena knows the stories too. The comparison is so far from funny that she almost laughs anyway.

"You're right," Marlene nods as if she understands. Elena concentrates on keeping her face clear. "Aeris died. But you're walking away because my dad's an ass."

Then Elena really does laugh. It tastes both dingy and bright like the life radiating from Marlene Wallace's long pony tail. When she straightens out and wipes away the warm tears, she wraps her free hand around Marlene's shoulders.

Maybe, if a six year-old girl can be strong, she can too. A little.

"I'll make you a deal Marlene Wallace," Elena weaves between guffaws. "If you turn fifteen and still want to know me, you'll track me down?"

She brightens a little and shakes her head. "That's soooo long," she sighs. "But if you promise not to tell on me, I'll think about it."

Elena takes Marlene, warm with blood in her veins and shining like gold stardust, into her arms and squeezes hard. "I promise," she whispers. "But I also promise that the time will go faster if we don't spend it on top of Shinra Spire."

Marlene nods. Elena knows she will see her even after today, on every face, in every smoke curl. She hopes that Marlene will at least see her sometimes. Maybe, just maybe, the seeing will turn into forgiveness. Maybe meeting Elena at age six will turn Marlene into Tifa Lockhart, willing to sell even to bad eggs.

But still, she doubts. She doubts she will ever get that phone call.

Pushing the wait and the pessimism away, Life and the Turk slide down the sleek glass curves on the wave of life's bittersweet promises.

-

As soon as the world's two most precious feet blend with the dust of Edge, I leap to catch her wrists in my hand. "Marlene Wallace, I am going to turn your ass red tonight." I can still feel the pan-ic pan-ic in my chest that set off when I saw the lady Turk wrap those treacherous arms around her.

Elena tumbles after her and walks briskly away, mangy blond head down. She does not even say goodbye. Good, I think. If she thought she would get something out of this, she'd be barking up the wrong eco-terrorist's tree. "She ain't gonna' press anything?"

"No," Marlene sniffles. Her eyes puff up and her nose runs wet. "She's not coming back to Tifa's bar either."

An irrational ache squeezes the veins ringing my skull. I feel a flicker of indecision before I squash it with my heavy boot on the flat streets of Edge.

"Damn Turk. Not even gonna' pay off that tab, is she?"

"For your information Dad," Marlene huffs, her nostrils flaring. "She's sending the gil over with Rude next week."

"Oh," I am not used to Marlene being so rebellious. Maybe I'm gone too much. If I were around more, she would not take up with Turks.

Turks who, apparently, talk her down when I get afraid. Turks who, it seems, make her cry when she thinks she will not see them anymore…

It doesn't matter.

Bristling, I use my memories to darken the light slinking through the glass spire and to tug Marlene after me. I hate the way her eyes linger behind as I drag her home to Tifa's bar.

I don't care what anyone says. An enemy of my enemy ain't my friend. Not even close.


End file.
